


Under the Grate

by Llewcie



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom
Genre: Blood, But He Gets Better, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, Hannibal Extended Universe, M/M, Magic, Mayhem, Mentions of death and dismemberment, Monsters, Neverwhere AU, Nigel is dead in the beginning, descriptions of neglect and starvation, gunshot wounds to the head
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-05 01:17:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11567286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llewcie/pseuds/Llewcie
Summary: Adam probably shouldn't bother with the man dying on the grate above him, on the other side of the surface of the world.  He knows better than to get involved, after all.  But since his da passed on through the Moarte, there is no one at home to meet him, and Adam is lonely.  And the man's soulbird is so beautiful.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Since this takes place in Bucharest, i decided on Romanian words for the major places. My apologies if I get them wrong.
> 
> Deasupra: The Above, people from above ground  
> Maijos: The Below  
> Râu: River  
> Moarte: the final death  
> Serviciu: service (service door)

The drop of blood dripped through the heavy wire mesh of the grate that divided the Maijos from the Deasupra. It plummeted down the empty shaft, at first wobbling ovoid and then perfectly spherical, until it flattened abruptly on the back of Adam's neck and spattered hot into his hair and across his shoulders. He looked up, eyes squeezed nearly shut against the glare of the Deasupra's halogens. Even through the wince he thought maybe there was something dark there, though, just on top, right at the surface. When he reached behind his head to rub at the splatter, he brought his finger back red. Not rain then, but a different kind of life. A year ago, Adam would have left well enough alone. Now he didn't bother to cage his curiosity. There was no Da anymore to look after, anyway. No reason waiting at shelter for him to be careful.

He was only halfway up the rungs when he saw the bird. It fluttered, gleaming like a miniature moon, luminescent in its ethereal beauty. Adam was too far away to catch it, so he pursed his lips and whistled to it instead. That usually never worked-- in fact, hadn't in all Adam's days in the Maijos, which were almost all the days he had to himself. But it was a lovely thing, this bird, and he wanted to hold on to it, and maybe even put it back. Maybe something he could Mend. All for nothing if the bird wouldn't come, and Adam tensed up in anticipation of losing it. He whistled once again, and it quivered, and it didn't come to him, but it didn’t go, either.

He climbed more steadily now, whistling as he put foot and hand to rung. He knew this ladder well-- knew where it came out by the sluice gates of the Râu that ran over and under them always. He knew each missing rung because he climbed often to stare at what few stars dotted the sky, as well as he could see in the eternal half night of halogen light. Sometimes the moon was right over, and he could gaze upon her moon face and ask her questions about the Deasupra. Now there was no moon and no stars and little halogen light passing through, because something was blocking the grate, blood a steady drip drip drip down the shaft. And still the bird fluttered.

Adam reached the top of the ladder and wedged himself in tight on the ledge that ran under the grate. He reached a hand out gingerly for the bird, whistling soft sleep songs all the while. The bird flitted up and about, and for a heartbeat seemed ready to speed off into the Moarte, far beyond his reach, or anyone's… but then it settled warm in his hand, glowing with a tiny heartbeat throb, getting slower all the while. Adam eyed the door marked _Serviciu_ nervously. His da had told him never, never open it. But his da was dead, and this one wasn't, not yet, not while his soul rested in the palm of Adam's hand, gathering energy for the final flight. Adam decided, and was afraid, and decided again but the other way, and he was just about to let the bird go when the body made a sound. 

It was not a pretty sound. A gurgle, maybe, or a grunt, but it was a tiny sound, and broken. Adam re-decided in a heartbeat, clutched the bird maybe a tiny bit too tight, and unhooked the grate from its rusting latches. The body was heavy, swinging down and thudding in an uncontrollable heap on the narrow ledge. Adam realized that he was on the wrong side of the body to get to the door, and there were a few moments of awkward discomfort as he climbed over the man, trying not to dig a knee in anywhere vital, still clutching the bird.

The never-open-it door was well oiled and opened almost silently, and Adam dragged the body by its smooth, shiny leather shoes (fetch good coin, he told himself, and squashed the thought. Decision made, Adam. No turning back.) into the small utility room. He felt for a light and finally found a string, which he pulled to illuminate the mess he had gotten himself into. 

The body was a man. Adam had a hard time telling the age of Deasupras, because of the way the sun darkened and wrinkled them, but he would guess this man was not old. He had gold and silver hair, and a heavy brow and cheekbones. In the middle of that heavy brow was a neat red hole, and Adam could tell it went all the way through by the smear of blood that trailed behind the man from the rub of his head on the stone floor. As Adam watched, the man's curved lips parted, and he trembled, his body failing at last. It was now or never. Adam thought hard. He knew the freedom of not caring for someone, of not having anyone at home to be careful for. The man's final sigh rattled his body, and then he was still.

Adam's heart kicked against his ribs. He decided one last time, and shoved the heavy, limp body over the ledge and down the shaft, all the way down to splash loudly into the water below, where it would float until he could catch it a bit further down. He would deal with the consequences later. Even in a bit of a hurry, he didn't forget to turn off the light, close the never-open-but-just-the-once door, and lock the grate shut against the Deasupra, moon and stars and all.

***

The mending of the man took hours, once Adam had climbed down the shaft and fished him out of the murky water and dragged him into a dry part of the vault-- still too out in the open but it would have to do-- no time now to burrow when the body weighed twice as much as Adam could lift for long. After a perusal of the wound, he decided this called for a delicate song. He had mended holes in arms and legs and even stomachs, squirmy intestines wriggling as he sang, but never one in someone's brain, and the complex twistings and turnings seemed never-ending to his . All the while, the bird fluttered strong in his pocket, one he had stitched special to hold birds like this, with runesigns in the thread made with his own hair.

The most basic mending song Adam knew was one of forgetting-- of teaching what was broken to forget that it had been broken. Most things did not want to be damaged, and it was, if not easy, then possible to make them forget. Bones were the simplest, of course-- hard things were always easier than soft because the breaks were clear, like smashed pottery that could be glued back together. Soft things, however… the back of the man's head was blown open like a flower, so Adam began there, cleaning with windy fricatives, soothing the trauma to skin and bone away until it lapsed back into place, content. Once his song threaded upward through the parietal lobe, as he sang he began to get whispers of the man's life, which he tied back into the song. From the mind he was mending, he had a sense of richness , but discomfort with it. Simplicity was a better fit for this man, and a longing for home, an abstract place that this man did not know the shape of. 

Slowly, so slowly, he worked up into the frontal lobe, where emotions were housed. Taking a deep breath, Adam steeled himself, dreading what he would find, and dreadfully committed now. Miserably tired and hungry, wishing that he had never started this, he plunged on. At once the most intimate feelings of the man overcame him. Bitterness, and grief were the strongest. Violence a second nature, and love. So much love, wild like a beast that latched on with locking jaws and never let go. Brain matter was a thousand soft connections with every breath, he was finding, and his song left him breathless and aching. He added a harmony of encouragement, lengthening his vowels thoughtfully, tapping his fingers like a heartbeat on the irritated skin around the bullet hole.

Finally, exhausted and shaking, completely wrung out, he made the smooth skin of the man's forehead forget it had been pierced. He was so tired that it didn't quite fix right, and the man would see it and know. But it didn't matter to Adam now. Nothing mattered but getting the man and himself somewhere safe to sleep. He took the wildly struggling bird out of his pocket, and with a tiny whisper of song, he pressed it into the man's mouth and stroked his throat until he swallowed.

***

Nigel woke in darkness and stench, and his very first thought was that hell smelled like his grandfather's bathroom. His second thought was of pain, thick and rancid in his muscles and his bones. He groaned from the edges of his lips, unable to take a breath, and opened his eyes to a field of stars. The air didn't smell like outdoor air, unless he was sitting right under a latrine. His skin began to itch and he flexed a finger, only to find it tacky with… something. Perhaps he was inside the latrine instead? He opened his mouth to make a sound, any sound at all, in hopes that he was not abandoned in a sewer near the river, his body rotting before his breath had left him. 

Before any sound could issue from his mouth, the soft press of a finger closed his lips, and a soft shushing whisper followed. "No sound: it's not safe here, deasupro."

Nigel froze at the touch, and then slowly allowed himself to relax when nothing more happened. Not that he could have done anything about it-- his body was immobile with pain and stiffness, and he was afraid that he would try to move and find that everything was broken. His head especially throbbed with a stunning sharpness that he had never felt the likes of, and he moved it gingerly, trying to set eyes on the person that had touched him. Next to him, illuminated only by the wan flickers of light, was a shape slightly less black than the deep shadows that engulfed them. "Hurts," he managed through cracked, flaking lips.

The hand touch him gently again. "I know," the shape whispered. There was no hint of gender or age. "Rest now. We’re safe as long as no one hears us."

Less than comforted, Nigel let the touch soothe him, and he closed his near-useless, burning eyes. Too quickly, he faded back into unconsciousness.

***

Adam contemplated the unconscious man, chewing his lip absently. Too heavy to move, and they were too near a minor junction that was much too near a major junction for his comfort. They would need to travel home, and soon, as the folk who went above to rummage in the detritus of the Deasupra came home to roost, fleeing the rising sun. Safety was an ever shifting target, and Adam felt best when he was home in his hobbit hole, as his da used to call it. Down a blind tunnel and through an unpromising crack in the brick, Adam washed it clean of his scent with sewer water every day. As he eyeballed the man, his mind calculated volume in reference to the opening of his home, and decided that he would more or less fit. 

The other question was, of course, whether he could afford to take him home at all. Adam felt responsible, and in the Maijos that responsibility was as binding as sharing blood, either through family or murder. On the other hand, the debt was known only to himself. Even the man whom he had saved did not know what Adam had done. If Adam were to leave him , right here, he would likely not wake, or if he did, he would be found and harvested for his fine shoes and his golden hair and his good strong teeth, fit for making rune charms. Much of him was useful-- little would be left behind by the scavvers and the shamen. It was altogether entirely inconvenient for Adam to bring him home-- he could think of a dozen reasons why he should not.

And yet. The soft rise and fall of his breathing. The little fangs poking out from his prominent upper lip. In his stillness, he was a handsome man, golden skin and silver hair. Muscular and well-fed, he could be helpful to Adam, who was not either of those things. Perhaps as a bodyguard. Adam contemplated as long as he dared, but by the time his gaze lingered on the man's mouth, he knew that his decision had already been made.

Hidden, Adam waited until the traffic in the major junction, the north cross of red line and blue beneath the Pieta Victoriei station, calmed to a slow trickle. The trains themselves would begin to run their day schedule soon, as the Deasupra's went to their work, to their shopping and eating. Here in the Maijos, the night was beginning.


	2. Chapter 2

When Nigel woke for the second time, it was to his body being shaken. He lifted his hand to grip a throat, to threaten someone with bodily harm for rousing him with this terrible, mind-blowing hangover. His hand barely twitched, and he felt like he needed to empty his stomach of every meal he had ever eaten. "Fuck."

"Shhh."

The bed was hard as a rock, and it stank. Had he already vomited on himself last night? He had no memory of the night before, or of the little honey whose bed he had fouled. He shifted his head and saw, in the dim light, that he was in bed with a man. "Fuck," he murmured again. The man put his hand over Nigel's mouth.

"Stop talking."

"Mmmph," Nigel replied. He stared at the man's silver-blue eyes, which, extraordinarily, seemed to be reflecting light. He'd never seen anything so disconcerting. Beyond the glowing irises, the man was unusual-looking, with a thick-bridged nose and uneven eyes, and an utterly perfect mouth. He was filthy, though, with smudges on his cheeks and stripes in his hair that could have been mud, or blood, or oil, or possibly all three. His square jaw was rough with stubble, and he wore a t-shirt that might have begun its life as white but looked like it hadn't been washed. Ever. 

This was seeming less and less like a comfort fuck and more like Nigel was in a post-apocalyptic movie. "Where am I?" he whispered.

The man looked at him for a long moment, silver eyes like a cat's, a frown leaving dark dirt-creases in his forehead. His hand was still laid softly over Nigel's mouth, as a caution for Nigel to be quiet. "I brought you from the Deasupra. You had been shot in the head with a small caliber handgun, but the bullet still passed all the way through. You died, but not before I caught your soulbird. I mended you, and gave you back your bird. And now we need to move or it is highly likely that you will be killed again for your shoes and your hair and your strong teeth and bones, for runes and weapons. Also, you need to drink water and eat protein to replenish your blood."

Nigel blinked several times as he processed this. On the one hand, he did actually feel like he had been shot in the head, and he was parched beyond belief. On the other hand… "If you didn't like the sex, you can just say so. I can leave and we'll never see each other again." The thought of not being a good lay was an uncomfortable one, but not the first time he would have to hear it. Gabi had told him often enough, in their last few miserable months under the same roof. Though he took pains to satisfy his lovers, recently nothing could satisfy his wife.

His morbid thoughts were interrupted by a curious face that swam into view above him. "Sex? We did not have sex. I told you the truth."

Nigel re-evaluated his initial judgement. This was a strange face, all wonky and oddly put together, but so harmonious that the overall effect was one of great beauty. He lifted his hand to the man's cheek, and this time his hand did his bidding. The man's skin was soft and warm, and Nigel rubbed over his jaw lightly. "Why not, gorgeous?"

The man looked pained, his light eyes in a squint. He pulled away, and sighed. "Can we talk about this later?"

Nigel grinned, his cheeks aching from the strain. "Will there be a later?"

"I can't guarantee it." The answer was terse, as the man shifted to the side.

"At least tell me your name? I'm N--" The hand was immediately back, pressing hard on his mouth to muffle him. Nigel tried to pull away, but found he was not strong enough. He snorted angrily.

"Don't say your name. Not here. They will hear you and they will come and take the bird from your mouth, and that would be a waste of all my work."

Nigel settled back down, irritated. "I don't know what the fuck you are talking about," he grumbled. 

"I told you the truth. It’s not my fault if you don't believe me." Nigel stared at him in stony silence, and the man seemed satisfied, and took his hand away again. "Come on, get up."

It was a struggle. It was beyond a struggle. Nigel thought perhaps that getting to his feet was the hardest thing he had ever done, and he had lived a very hard life. The man helped him, leveraging him up with a few tugs that send shocks of pain through his arms and back and hips. Eventually, he was standing, swaying feebly and utterly humiliated. His head swam, and he leaned on the man for support. After a long wait, in what seemed like total silence, the man shifted and began to walk, and Nigel walked with him, limping and weak and not knowing how long he could keep this up. 

They moved out of the shadows, and Nigel saw that what had looked like stars was actually bits of shine embedded in a wall of old brick. Like chips of mica, they reflected light from a single bulb down the passage of stone. Nigel's feet sloshed in water, and only now did he realize that he was soaked through. "Where the fuck are we?" he whispered.

"Under," the man replied. "Under the trains. Near your Pieta Victoriei station."

Nigel nodded. If that were true, then the smell made sense. He knew of the tunnels beneath Bucharest-- all criminally-minded people here knew something of them, had spent a night or two in their wet shadows. But to penetrate them this deeply was well beyond his sense of survival. Other than his knowledge that the underworld king here was named Bruce Lee, he had no sense of the place. Shelter for the homeless children of the city, a dark and dangerous and often short existence could be their only respite here. And now he was stumbling ever deeper through the muck with a man who claimed he had brought Nigel back to life by stuffing a bird in his mouth.

He was never drinking again.

It was actually quite unusual for him to have no memory of what had happened the night before. Or day before. In fact, the last thing he remembered was Gabi and that damned video tape, and something about a deal. Something about betrayal. She and her most recent boy-toy, the rodent-like Charlie Countryman, had wanted to trade the tape for their freedom. But if the meeting had happened, Nigel didn't know about it. Perhaps it had, and he had gone off and gotten himself shit-faced, and this was all a crazy hallucination. A crazy hallucination that hurt worse than anything he had ever endured. Somewhere over their heads, a train clattered past, and the man looked upwards, his sweet face thoughtful. "We'll be home in 40 trains," he murmured.

"Which line?"

"The M1. Yellow line."

Nigel did the math, painfully. The yellow line ran every 6 minutes on peak. 240 minutes. 4 hours of this unimaginable pain and thirst. He stopped in his tracks, the filthy water sloshing around his cuffs. Despair rose up in him like a stinking flood. "Look, little bird. I'm not going to make it."

The man looked at him solemnly, his lips in a stern line. "You have to," he said simply.

***

They walked for ages made of pure agony. Nigel had to stop so often to quiet his tortured breathing that he began to wonder if they would ever reach their destination. It began to feel like they were acting out Zeno's Paradox, and that they would manage only halfway, and halfway again, always just halfway to safety. Because as was made starkly clear, there was no safety here in the open tunnels. 

But it was not the first monster that they encountered-- a rat that climbed along the dripping pipes that ran along the tunnels with its eight long and spidery limbs, small sucking noises popping as it pulled loose its long-toed paws from the crevices in the wall-- that drove this unnerving feeling home, nor the second, which was less a monster and more a gathering of awful, wet slithering noises that passed by them unseen, smelling of ancient wet. 

Nigel heard it when it was still very far off-- the anguish of it throbbing in his ears like the sounds of the shifting earth underwater. It was the sound of the trains as it echoed through the occasional grate above, laced with pain and an undercurrent of panic. The man paused to listen, and then gripped Nigel's hand in his, too tightly. "We need to hide you," he said, plainly, in the tone of voice with which he had just stated that they had passed X station. The frisson of fear that shimmered over Nigel's shoulders seemed to crawl right out of the air and into his skin, burrowing underneath with little rat-claws. He let the man tug him into the shadows and deeper, wedging into an airless, stinking corner. The man was not apologetic. "The smell might shield you." The man took Nigel's face in his hands, suddenly, his silver eyes wide and worried. "Don't talk. Don't make a sound. Whatever you do, when he finds you, don't tell him your name."

Nigel noticed that he said when rather than if, and he reached out to stop the man from leaving, the strange fear crawling up from his stomach and choking him. But the man was gone.

The sharp clop of hooves crushing glass came closer, steadily, and along with it the susurration of a thousand chittering feathery thorns, dragging against the walls. Nigel wanted to press his hands against his ears but he didn’t dare move, not even with the high shriek that sounded like glass being cut drowning out his heart, his breath, his thoughts. He squeezed his eyes shut and focused on not pissing his terror down his leg, and probably would have anyway had there been a drop of spare water in his entire body. Silence snapped into place around him, and he opened his eyes. What came into focus right in front of his little hidden corner was something that he could not quite believe, even with everything that had happened today. His brain was just full up of horror, and could not take a drop more.

It was black, so black that it stood out starkly against the shadows. Its smooth head was crowned with antlers so tall and sharp that Nigel wondered how it didn’t get them caught on mortar, brick, or metal grating at every turn. Maybe it did, and those razor tips just sliced right through. 

The man, Nigel's silver-eyed beauty, was in its arms, and the beast was pressing soft kisses to his face, stroking daggered fingers through his hair. 

***

Adam let his eyes slip closed as he was kissed and scented, letting himself relax for the first time since he had climbed the first rung to help the man from above. Hannibal kissed his forehead, his eyes, his mouth, and Adam sighed with relief and pleasure to see him again. "My da died," he began without preamble. "Did you know?"

"I had heard," the beast rumbled, kissing his cheek and pulling him close to cradle him. "I am sorry, my little dove, that I have not come sooner." Adam relaxed entirely against him, letting Hannibal hold him up. 

"It took me a long time to learn how to take care of myself. I was hungry."

Hannibal pulled back a little, only to focus his blank silver-white eyes on Adam's. "And now you have another mouth to feed."

Adam flushed, but did not look down. "You have my cousin to look after you. Why should I not have someone?"

"Shhh, my little bird." Hannibal smirked, the sensation more of teeth biting flesh than mild amusement. Adam liked his human face less, even so. The darkness of the Wendigo was honest, at least. "I will not eat him. He is your affair. You are grown now."

"Oh." At that, Adam did look down. "Will you no longer come to visit me then?"

Hannibal snorted, and a flash of real amusement burned bright enough for even Adam to see. "Why would I not visit you? You are family, after all." He settled Adam on his feet. "Now let me meet this man you have adopted, like Will's stray dogs." He turned to face the black corner. "Come, Deasupro, and show your face to me."

***

Nigel felt a hard tug in his gut, that pulled him a step forward. He braced his hands against the damp brick and held on for his life, panting at the strain of such a simple exertion. The beast simply stood there, its blank eyes terrifying in a way that reminded him of dead things. The man, Nigel's man, reached out to him then. "It's alright. He promised not to eat you." The beast's face split open in a jagged grin, about the least reassuring sight Nigel had ever seen. Still, he stepped forward under his own power, and tried to convince himself that he had seen worse.

He had _not seen worse._

Up close, the beast was bone and ropy muscle, black as velvet, and it smelled like blood and rain and wet earth. Eyes so white both iris and sclera were the same color, and no pupil at all. Nigel stood still, part exhaustion and part terror, as the creature stroked a claw over his shoulder and down his back.

"What is your name?"

Nigel pressed his lips together against the urge to speak. If his little savior had not warned him, he would have vomited out everything he could remember about himself. But the man's quiet gaze on him steadied him, and he slowly narrowed his eyes, allowing his gaze to fix on the man. "What's your's?" he returned, his voice shaking only a little. The beast chuckled, metal rubbing against stone, and tilted its head, seeming to examine him.

"You are moving too slow, Nameless. It is not safe out in the open."

Nigel readied himself to say something appropriately cutting; he loathed feeling vulnerable, and on top of that thirsty and sick and in so much pain he thought every step was a triumph. He even filled his lungs for it, inhaling the grave-stench of the monster who had kissed the man who saved him, was saving him. But the beast moved closer, and far too close, and then Nigel knew nothing else at all.


End file.
